Israel Hits Hamas Posts in Gaza With Airstrikes

Published: May 26, 2007

The Israeli Army continued its airstrikes against the Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip late on Thursday and Friday, hitting at least eight different locations and taking aim at a rocket-launching cell, an army spokesman said.

One of the attacks struck a guard post close to the home of the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, according to Palestinian officials.

The Israeli Army spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity under army rules, said that Mr. Haniya was ''definitely not'' the target of the nighttime attack on Shati. Instead, the army had aimed at and hit ''a building used by Hamas'' in the camp, he said. The guard post, described by local residents as little more than a container or a tin shack, was empty at the time of the attack. Mr. Haniya was photographed soon after inspecting the damage.

Three Hamas militants were killed Friday night in an airstrike on their vehicle in Gaza City. The three, members of the Hamas military wing, had launched rockets at Israel, the Aqsa TV channel of Hamas and the Israeli Army said.

The Israeli military campaign began May 17, soon after Hamas announced that it would resume its rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, ending a six-month cease-fire. Smaller Palestinian factions had consistently violated the cease-fire, firing a trickle of rockets. But the number of rocket launches rose sharply in mid-May, with about 220 rockets being fired toward Israel since then, according to the Israeli Army.

On Friday afternoon, a rocket landed in the yard of a house in the Israeli border town of Sderot, slightly wounding three civilians, army officials said, while another hit a factory shed. The military wing of Hamas, known as the Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for those attacks, and for firing six rockets at Israel on Friday morning.

Other Israeli airstrikes on Friday singled out buildings that the army said belonged to Hamas. There were strikes in Khan Yunis, to the south of Gaza City, and in Jabaliya, to the north. A structure the army described as an Islamic Jihad weapons manufacturing facility was hit in the town of Rafah. Palestinian officials described it as a metal workshop.

In Gaza City, Israeli missiles hit a money-changing business that the army said was ''involved in transferring funds to terror organizations.'' No deaths were reported in those strikes, but at least 21 Palestinians were wounded, said Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health. He said that two of the wounded were members of the Hamas police militia known as the Executive Force, while 19 were civilians, including three women and seven children.

Ahmad Youssef, an adviser to Mr. Haniya, said the attack on the guard post in the Shati camp had been meant to send ''a message of threats.'' Israeli officials have recently suggested that leaders of the political wing of Hamas should not consider themselves immune.

At least 38 Palestinians have been killed in nine days of Israeli airstrikes, according to Dr. Hassanain. The Israeli military says it has focused its attacks on rocket-launching cells, Hamas military positions and weapons-storage facilities. One Israeli has been killed and two have been seriously wounded by the rockets fired recently from Gaza.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, has been trying to persuade the various Palestinian factions, including Hamas, to stop the rocket fire. Although Fatah is in the unity government with Hamas, the two remain rivals. About 50 Palestinians were killed in recent fighting between the two factions.